Ballerina Farm is the latest raw milk producer to halt production after reports that its milk failed safety tests. Coliform, a family of bacteria that includes E. coli, was found in bottles produced in May and June 2025. The company, owned by lifestyle advocates Hannah and Daniel Neeleman, produces its raw milk, among other products, on a small farm in Kamas, Utah, where it also has a farm stand. They also had another farm store in Midway, Utah, but that location reportedly did not sell raw milk.
According to KPCW, Ballerina Farm had to temporarily halt its raw milk production after a routine health inspection by the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF). This happened just a few months after it started selling raw milk at the Kamas stand, and a spokeswoman for Ballerina Farm told KPCW that the farm currently only sells unpasteurized milk.
“Producing raw milk takes careful planning from a facility and infrastructure perspective,” Ballerina Farm said in a Jan. 29, per KPCW. “Unfortunately, we learned this after the fact.”
However, in a statement to the people, Daniel Neeleman said that Ballerina Farm plans to open a second dairy farm specifically for raw milk products. He emphasized that even though coliform was found in his raw milk, it still passed the daily testing required to be sold in Utah.
But raw milk is not the only recent news. On February 3, the New Mexico Department of Health issued an alert urging people in New Mexico to stop consuming raw milk products after a newborn baby died from Listeria disease believed to be caused by raw milk her mother consumed during pregnancy.
In recent years, there have been several recalls of raw milk and raw pet food due to findings that they contained the bird flu virus.
Health officials have long said raw milk poses a health risk because it has not been pasteurized, a process that uses heat to kill disease-causing bacteria. However, this did not stop people from continuing to drink it, believing it to be “natural” or “healthier” than commercial milk. We are investigating these claims.
Pasteurization kills disease-causing bacteria in milk, which is why raw, unpasteurized milk can be a health threat.
What is pasteurization?
Pasteurization is a heating process that was invented in the 1860s by the French chemist Louis Pasteur and has been widely used since as a way to kill harmful bacteria and viruses that can sometimes cause serious illness. These include disease-causing bacteria, such as E. coli, Listeria and Salmonella, and viruses such as H5N1 bird flu.
Some milk products may be ultra-pasteurized, which means the milk is heated faster than conventional pasteurization (2 seconds versus 15 seconds) at a higher temperature, then cooled quickly. This increases its shelf life.
Pasteurized milk products can be organic or not. Whether you can buy or sell raw, unpasteurized milk depends on your state’s laws. In California, for example, you can buy raw milk in stores, although it must be properly labeled with a warning that it is not pasteurized.
The dangers of drinking unpasteurized, raw milk
Accidentally drinking or inhaling contaminated raw milk can cause illness. Unwashed hands with contaminated milk touching the eyes, nose or mouth can also lead to infection.
There are also potential health risks to raw milk, which is not part of what the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refers to as “dairy” milk.
“In my opinion, there is concern about the purchase of raw milk that can be part of the food system, and people are protecting that milk without going to the store,” Meg Schaeffer, an infectious disease doctor and National Public Health consultant at the analysis company SAS, told CNET when this article was first published in 2024.
In general, drinking raw milk has health risks. It can expose people to serious diseases such as E. coli and Listeria. Although it may cause temporary or very minor illness in most people, people with weakened immune systems, the elderly, those who are pregnant and very young children are at greater risk of adverse health effects from drinking unpasteurized milk.
The risk is especially high for children, according to Schaeffer, who are at high risk of illness. In extreme cases, the health consequences of drinking contaminated raw milk can lead to kidney failure.
Schaeffer also dismissed claims that diseases that were once a major problem in countries like the US, such as tuberculosis, are no longer a problem. That’s true of tuberculosis, he said, but we also have effective treatments for it. Not so, he said, with certain diseases that children can get from unpasteurized milk.
“Diseases, if they exist, are strong — antibiotic resistance,” Schaeffer said, adding that some bacteria that may be in raw milk may not be visible to farmers because they don’t cause illness in cows but in humans.
Although buying raw milk from a farm you know sets high safety standards and practices, and “good hygiene” during milking can reduce the risk of contaminated milk, it will not eliminate it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Despite the health concerns surrounding raw milk, people continue to drink it because of the nutritional benefits that have been touted.
Why do people still drink raw milk?
Proponents of raw or skim milk prefer it for a variety of reasons, including its creamier texture and taste, anecdotal reports that it’s easier to digest and says it’s more nutritious.
You can’t argue with someone’s taste or texture preferences when it comes to food, but when it comes to the nutritional or health benefits of raw milk versus unpasteurized milk, research has backed up or disproved many of the claims. The FDA, for example, says that raw milk is not a cure or a cure for lactose intolerance. The organization also says on the same fact sheet that people are misusing the results of a 2007 study about the consumption of farm milk, not raw milk, providing protection against asthma and allergies.
In a risk-versus-benefit analysis of raw milk research, Healthline reported that any small antimicrobial benefit from raw milk would be negated if refrigerated. It also reported, based on the results of a 2011 systematic review, that the loss of small amounts of water-soluble vitamins, including some B vitamins, is already low in milk in general.
“Pasteurization effectively kills bacteria in raw milk without any significant impact on the nutritional quality of the milk,” the CDC concluded. “Many studies have shown that pasteurization has little effect on the quality of nutritious milk.”
If you want to eat with evidence gut health benefitsconsider adding foods like kimchi, pickled vegetables, sour dough, apple cider vinegar and milk in your diet.
